Conquering His Cold Heart

334 Mockery

“Ah! Vincent! Good thing I found you right away,” Zenon said after swooshing in and standing in front of Tilla and Vincent.

Vincent shifted his attention from Tilla to the one who had disturbed his talk with Tilla. He looked at Zenon while slightly narrowing his eyes and grumpily greeted him. “Zenon. What are you doing here?”

Zenon looked at Tilla first and gave her a polite nod even when his position didn’t require him to.

Tilla smiled and bowed to the Lord. And feeling that she was interrupting some confidential talk from happening, she bowed to Vincent as well before quietly taking her leave.

Vincent sighed after watching Tilla walk away from there. He frowned at Zenon as soon as Tilla disappeared from sight and crudely spoke to him, “Ugh! What do you want?”

Zenon maintained a calm smile on his face and replied to the pissed vampire lord, “I don’t want anything from you but the King does.”

Vincent suddenly became attentive when he heard Zenon mentioning the King. He stopped frowning and asked, “Does he have any order for me?”

“Yes.” Zenon lost his smile from his face and relayed the King’s message to Vincent. “The King is angry at you because you haven’t gone to greet him for days. He asked me to summon you right away.” He pointed his thumb behind him and added, “He is waiting for you right there on the staircase.”

Vincent immediately felt guilty for not showing his face in front of the King. And he was even a little scared thinking that the King was really mad at him for doing so.

.....

He looked at Zenon with fear in his eyes and asked, “He is not going to punish me for it, is he?”

Zenon simply turned around and slowly started to walk toward the staircase.

“Hey! Answer me!” Vincent ran after Zenon while asking for an answer.

Zenon gave a side-glare to Vincent when he started to walk beside him. He also didn’t like how Vincent had neglected his duty towards the King and decided to scare Vincent, even though it was only for a minute or two.

“Yes, the King is so mad that he has chosen a very harsh punishment for you.”

Vincent gulped in fear as soon as he heard that from Zenon. “W-What kind of harsh punishment?” he asked in a suppressed whisper. “I-Is he going to send me to the border? Or is he planning on throwing me to the dungeon?”

Zenon shrugged and nonchalantly replied, “Could be anything. He hasn’t told me anything yet.”

“No!” Vincent held his head with both of his hands and dramatically looked up at the tall ceiling of the corridor. “What if he bans me from ever visiting the castle? That would be the worse!”

Zenon slightly bit the inside of his lower lip and turned his head away in order to hold in his laughter. He was greatly enjoying putting Vincent through the trouble.

Vincent, on the other hand, was unaware of Zenon’s trickery and began thinking of the things that he could do to plead for the King’s pardon.

He took a deep breath in and straightened his clothes before turning at the end of the corridor and reaching the staircase.

Just to get the extra laugh, Zenon stood at the corner and gestured for Vincent to take the lead, making Vincent believe that he wasn’t ready to appear in front of the angry King and face his wrath.

Vincent sighed and fisted his hands before slowly turning the corner with his head held low.

As soon as he did, he was greeted by the King’s stern and satirical voice, “Finally. Lord Vincent has decided to grace me with his presence.”

Thinking that the next thing that the King would do was announce the punishment for him, Vincent instantly dropped to his knees and apologized while deeply bowing to the King.

“Please forgive me, Your Majesty. I didn’t mean to appear disloyal and ignorant by being absent. I will always come and greet you first thing in the morning. So please, don’t punish me by banning me from the castle’s premises.”

Caspian knitted his brows in utter confusion when Vincent suddenly appeared in front of him and blabbed on. He slowly lifted his gaze away from Vincent and looked at Zenon to ask if he knew what the hell was going on.

Zenon was standing behind Vincent and was fisting over his mouth to stop himself from snickering right in front of the King.

Caspian instantly understood that Zenon was in on what was going on and cleared his throat. “Vince…” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and played along. “I thought that you were my only friend who never betrayed me. But…”

He made his voice sound even more dramatic and emotional. “But even you have started to show your true colors now. I mean… not even greeting me once while you are inside the castle! That is outrageous!”

Caspian almost lost it when Vincent jumped a little and lifted his head to look at him like a hurt puppy.

But he still managed to hold in and harshly shouted to hide his laughter, “You don’t deserve to come here when you don’t even think that it is necessary to show your respect to the King, if not to your friend.”

Vincent genuinely believed that he was going to be banned from entering the castle again. He immediately crossed his hands together and pleaded again, “Your Majesty! Don’t say that. Please, I beg you. I don’t have anywhere to… go…”

He suddenly slowed down and came to a halt when he heard Zenon snickering from behind. He furrowed his brows and quickly turned his head to see Zenon freely laughing now.

“What the…” Vincent looked ahead at the King’s face to see that even he was letting out suppressed laughter.

“Oh hell no! Both of you were just messing with me?” he shouted in anger.

Caspian suddenly burst out in laughter and shouted at Zenon. “Hey! I was handling him so well. Why did you start laughing? You messed it up, Zenon.”

“Please excuse me, Your Majesty,” Zenon said while trying his best to control his laughter. But he couldn’t do so, and he ran outside towards the main gate of the castle.

Vincent quickly jumped up on his feet and dusted off his knees while shouting at Caspian again. “How could you do that to me? You made a fool out of me!”

He glared at Caspian, now that he knew that he wasn’t in any trouble. And he shouted again, “I don’t deserve to be treated this way just so that you can get a laugh out of me. I also have some pride, you know.”

Caspian climbed down a few stairs that were left and put his arm around Vincent’s shoulder. He was still chuckling when he apologized, “Okay, forgive me, alright? But hey, I never asked you to drop down on your knees. You did that yourself.”

“Because!” Vincent took a deep breath to calm himself down and spoke much more softly than before, “I thought that you were going to punish me. That snake of a man told me that you were enraged at me.”

Caspian kept on laughing and leading Vincent toward the gate.

“Are we going somewhere?” Vincent asked when he realized that they were heading toward the main gate.

Caspian finally stopped chuckling and cleared his throat. And he nodded. “Yes. Let’s roam around the town and see what my people are up to.”